I, like many of you, have been watching a lot of the drama of world events unfolding over the last few weeks. I have been watching a lot of shame and guilting behaviours being slung around by all sides, often being used as weapons.
This isn’t new. Shame and guilt have been utilized as a behavior modifier for thousands of years. Many religions utilize them to great effect, for instance.
This isn’t what I’ve been noticing, however. I mean, it is. There’s a lot of that usage happening too. But what I’ve been increasingly noticing is the weaponizing of shame, wielded by people who don’t seem to understand what they’re doing with it. They’re just slinging it out there to try to get a reaction.
What’s becoming abundantly clear is that this is a learned behavior without the understanding of its use. It’s people who have very clearly been shamed constantly in their lives, probably for all kinds of behaviours, and they have not at all made the connection between what their behavior was, why it was inappropriate, and why shame was utilized as a behavior modifier. So instead of correcting the behavior, they have continued it and instead seem to have learned to just use shame indiscriminately and without understanding it’s ‘normal’ social usage.
What’s more, they are using it to gain popularity amongst their peers who also do not understand that ‘public shamings’ are designed to control aberrant behavior not only in those they shame, but in all those watching the shaming. It’s as much about changing the ‘shamees’ behavior as it is in teaching the rest of the population not to do that behavior as well, lest you also be shamed.
That is clearly not at all what has been learned by a sub-section of society. Instead, they have learned to weaponize shame, aim it at things that are sort of and yet not at all the same, and then high five each other and smugly gloat about it.
These tools have rarely been aimed at the modification of what the ‘slinger’ seems to deem as the aberrant behavior, as most cases of ‘using shame or guilt as a behavioural modification tool’ have been typically used for. This has been more about ‘oneupsmanship’, gaining a following, trying to popularize themselves somehow, revenge, or an attempt to smear an opponent they don’t like.
I often talk about how emotions are just tools that we can use in either a positive or a negative way. It’s like if you have a hammer (shame, in this case) – you can use it to build a house or you can use it to hit someone. What’s been playing out in the world right now is a bit like some kids in the schoolyard are doing a school project where they build birdhouses. Some bullies use their hammers to smash the fingers of the kids they don’t like and then say ‘what? Hammers are used to hit things, aren’t they?’ And then, instead of the rest of the schoolyard standing up to the bullies, everyone just starts swinging wildly. That is a very unsafe situation for all involved, and it diminishes the original ‘poor behaviour’ because now everyone is doing it and you can no longer tell which kids are the ones just defending themselves, and which ones are the perpetrators. To someone on the outside, it’s just chaos and everyone is in the wrong.
So, instead of perpetuating this scenario…
I am grateful for life. I am grateful for the right to have opinions and argue them amongst each other. I am grateful for the forums in which we all get to speak and learn from each other. I am grateful that I live in a country where I am free to live, love, and speak however I choose. I am grateful for the daily reminders from people all over who use these rights to their fullest. I am grateful that these rights are not without the bounds of good taste and morality and that people can be called on their hate when they go too far, because otherwise, how would you know where the lines are? I am grateful that people are mostly kind-hearted and forgiving and tolerant. I am grateful for people who have not yet learned to be compassionate, as they serve as reminders for how far we’ve come as a society to view their beliefs as aberrant and outside the new cultural norm. I am grateful that we have learned that divisive tactics and hate are symptoms of fearful people who have learned to use aggression and bullying to get their needs met because they have had lives where it was the best option for them at the time. I am grateful that we have the ability to choose to show them a better way. I am grateful for the challenge of this, as it makes me a kinder, more compassionate person each time I try to see them as people too, with fears and morality of their own, that might not be the same as mine but it exists within them nonetheless. I am grateful that we get to learn from each other this way. I am grateful for the times that I fail in this, for it provides me an opportunity to learn about myself and where I can continue to grow and evolve as a person. I am grateful for each and every one of the people in my life, who may be different from me, have different opinions than mine, different lifestyles, different cultures, etc., but who are all fundamentally the same inside and want the same things - a better, safer, kinder future. I am grateful that every day I get the chance to decide what kind of person I want to be, and that if I don’t live up to that, I get to try again tomorrow.
‘Til next time, Folks…